Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Thomas Sowell proposes an interesting idea. Most if not all the problems we see with elected officials is them using their power to acquire a high paying job later, or inside info to make money in the market, etc. Lobbyists find it relatively easy and cheap to purchase what they want out of government.

The Libertarian Position is to make government officials so powerless it won’t matter if they are bought off. Great idea in theory, but isn’t going to happen in reality. Dr Sowell proposes that we make it harder to buy off a government official, and make the job more attractive to people with real expertise who would never consider an office because of the pay cut.

Sowell notes, “We could pay every member of Congress a million dollars a year -- for a whole century -- for less than it costs to run the Department of Agriculture for one year.

The least we can do is make it harder to bribe them. Trying to bribe a millionaire would at least be harder than bribing some government official with a modest salary and a couple of kids going to expensive colleges.”

At less than $600 Million, compared to the current waste in government, it might be a wise investment.

Like he says the current crop doesn’t deserve the money, but we won’t get better people at the current pay. Paying the people who control TRILLIONS of dollars a million a year is not outlandish. Look at CEO pay vs the gross revenue of companies they head. Maybe paying every member of the house $1 Million a year, the Senate and VP $1.5 million, and the President $2 Million a year, would both attract better people to the job and insulate them better from the influence of corporate money. And we wouldn’t have to deal with them voting themselves a raise every year. Something to think about. Not only if they made a lot more money, it would be a lot harder to influence them with a promise of a great job and a tip on what stock to buy, it would attract a better class of crook candidate. It would probably be a lot cheaper in the long run.

"Criminalizing choices that adults make because we think they are unwise ones, when the choices involved have no negative effect on the rights of others, is not appropriate in a free society."– Barney Frank (2009)"The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients."– Edmund Burke (1899)"The core divide in American politics now is not between liberals and conservatives, or between capitalists and socialists. It is between libertarians and communitarians."- E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post, May 19, 2003

"Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen...."-President Dwight Eisenhower

“Where the government fears the people, there is Liberty. Where the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”- Benjamin Franklin "The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight." Obviously Teddy didn’t have much of a “victim” mentality.- Teddy Roosevelt (1902)